Drew Blauth
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What three words would you use to describe L&C?
Rogers Summer Research Alumni Profile, 2025
What research project did you work on?
The 2021 Rogers program was my first experience working as a researcher full-time and kickstarted what would eventually become my senior thesis research over the following two years. Working with Dr. Louis Kuo, I created and tested the ability of molybdenum (the element) based compounds to oxidize (type of chemical reaction) sulfur-containing compounds. This project also involved modeling these oxidation reactions and identifying new compounds to create and test by perusing scientific literature.
Why did you decide to sign up for the program?
There are two main reasons that motivated me to apply to the Rogers program. First off, I wanted to work on something that felt important. While I understood that college was important for my own and others’ learning, I wanted to take a step further and contribute to solving a problem that influences people across the globe. These oxidation reactions are an important step in the petroleum purification process, helping to limit toxic emissions when petroleum is burned. One of the impacts of these lessened sulfur emissions is a reduction in the quantity of sulphuric acid in the atmosphere, which is one of the primary components of acid rain. As a result, I felt that working on this project gave me an opportunity to contribute to protecting natural environments across the globe.
While lectures and laboratory courses taught me important skills and information, I recognized that those environments were not representative of scientific work outside of academic settings. This became my second reason for applying to the Rogers program. By being a part of this program, I got first-hand experience being a full-time researcher, leading me to discover my interest in research and becoming more serious about pursuing chemistry after graduating.
What’s a favorite memory from the experience?
That’s a tough question to answer! There are quite a few memories that I treasure, but the one that came to mind first was (ironically) a rather painful one:
The instrument I was using to perform experiments (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectrometer) lost some functionality partway through the summer. It was still possible to run experiments, but I had to be extra careful to insert and remove samples. One day, I accidentally added my sample to the instrument when another sample was already in there, causing the ~$70,000 part of the instrument immediately surrounding the samples to break. I was mortified, struggling to forgive myself while the part was shipped off to be repaired. Over the next several weeks, I slowly came to terms with my mishap, eventually forgiving myself when the part was fixed and returned several days later.
To this day, this remains one of the worst experiences that I have had as a researcher. Despite that, it is also one that I very highly value because of what it taught me about the volatile nature of research. Working on the forefront of science, there is a lot of educated guessing and working with extremely complicated and temperamental machinery to try to advance the limits of human knowledge. As a consequence, there are times when research goes really well due to good luck and times when it goes terribly wrong with a bit of bad luck. This experience was my first encounter with really bad luck, teaching me how to prepare for these kinds of events and use them as learning opportunities to avoid repeating them in the future. Thus, while this was undoubtedly one of the worst experiences I have had as a researcher, it is also one of my favorite because of the valuable lessons I learned because of it.
What role did faculty mentorship play during your time in the program?
Faculty mentorship was a key aspect of this program. Dr. Kuo outlined the project and then steadily led me to working independently, reminding me to revisit the big-picture ideas of the project when I got lost in the fine details. Despite working alone, I was increasingly able to design, execute, and analyze experiments throughout the summer, critical skills for the graduate-level work I am doing now.
What specific skills or knowledge did you gain during the program that have been especially valuable in your post-L&C life?
As a PhD student, my current work shares many similarities to researching during the Rogers Program. The most valuable skills have to do with working independently: perusing literature for research ideas, designing experiments, performing experiments, and analyzing data with minimal guidance from my research advisor. Being able to keep track of the work that I do and avoid repeating mistakes are critical for performing research over periods of time long enough that I forget the details of work I performed earlier. In terms of knowledge, my current work as an atmospheric chemist is very different from inorganic synthesis that I worked on during Rogers. Despite that, there are basic concepts relevant to both projects. For example, I still think about factors that influence reaction speed as well as the impact of fossil fuel burning emissions on natural and anthropogenic environments.
How did the experience shape your thinking about your future career plans?
The Rogers program greatly impacted how I thought about my future. Up until that point, I had been waffling between several STEM fields to major in and did not have enough information from classes alone to decide which one I wanted to prioritize pursuing or what I wanted to use my knowledge for after graduating. After Rogers, however, I knew that I wanted to focus specifically on using my STEM knowledge to tackle environmental issues and saw that attending this program had given me the momentum I needed to do so. With that in mind, I focused specifically on chemistry and math, hoping to use those skills to collect, analyze, and interpret chemical data while continuing on the research path that I had just started. Since then, I have continued onward using that momentum, ending up in the PhD program I am currently in performing large-scale data analysis to try and understand sources of air pollution in major cities across the U.S.
What advice would you give to students considering the summer science research program in the future?
Research is about thinking creatively and independently, working around obstacles, collaborating with others, and learning new and exciting information on a regular basis. The Rogers program gives you an opportunity to experience what that is like and to start building connections with people who can help you pursue a research career. If that sounds interesting to you, go for it! A lot of people shy away from research because they do not think they are cut out for it, that they lack the skills and knowledge needed to succeed. However, what you already know ultimately is not that important—it is the ability and interest in learning that determines how successful of a researcher you will be.
Anything else you would like to add?
The professor that you work for as a researcher has an enormous impact on your experience. Before applying to the program, talk to students who have worked with professors you are interested in and the professors themselves. In addition, the way that research is managed differs greatly by subject. Some labs are more inclined to accept younger students and keep them for four years while others are more interested in working with older students for one or two years at most. If you are thinking about applying to the Rogers program, it is often helpful to start observing these patterns and making moves long before submitting your application.
Life at L&C, 2024
Congratulations on your Goldwater scholarship! What was the application process like?
Knowing the chances of receiving this award are slim, I had thought about this application process as a method to better understand my research and think about my future. I had learned a lot about myself throughout the application process and, therefore, hadn’t thought a lot about the award itself. As a result, I was both shocked and honored when I received it. I was also very motivated to continue working on research here at L&C because receiving the award gave me the confidence to explore more of my interests. I have also recently begun to think of how much this award could help other L&C students so I have begun encouraging others to go through the application process.
Can you tell us a little bit about your upcoming research?
I plan on continuing to work with Dr. Kuo creating chemicals that can be used to reduce the amount of pollutants emitted by burning fossil fuels. I will work particularly on identifying specific chemical substructures and atoms that increase a chemical’s ability to remove pollutants from petroleum. In addition, over this summer, I will be working at the University of Southern California on an electrochemistry project. I am not quite sure of what I will be specifically working on yet but I believe it will be related to improving energy storage techniques.
What advice do you have for students interested in similar opportunities to yours?
It’s super important to talk to faculty about research, internships, classes, and other opportunities. They are very familiar with opportunities that are regularly available for students and can use their connections both inside and outside the college to help find ways to explore interests through school, extracurriculars, and work. It is also extremely important to start working on applications and planning to take advantage of certain opportunities as early as possible. This gives you plenty of time to think about your relationship to these opportunities and critically think about how they can help you discover more about yourself.
What made you want to come to Lewis & Clark?
While applying to colleges, I was interested in attending a liberal arts school because I was unsure what I wanted to study and enjoyed learning about all sorts of topics from very different subjects. I also enjoy the sense of community that smaller schools have, and I was looking to attend a college somewhere that was cooler and wetter than Southern California. Both of these interests led me to apply to several small schools in the Pacific Northwest. In addition, I was interested in schools that were close to an urban area but were surrounded with natural spaces. After hearing about Lewis & Clark from two alumni who attended the same high school as me, I decided that L&C matched my interests well and applied to this institution. I decided to attend Lewis & Clark because it is far more diverse than the other institutions I applied to and because there are a lot of hiking trails and parks nearby that I was interested in walking through on a regular basis.
What is your favorite class? What did you take away from this course?
My favorite course was Ordinary Differential Equations. I loved working with a variety of models that I then used to predict the behavior of phenomena based on certain parameters. In addition to testing my mathematics skills, this class enabled me to explore the connections between mathematics and a broad range of other subjects including epidemiology, astronomical physics, and ecology. This greatly tested my interdisciplinary skills and enabled me to use knowledge I had gained from all different kinds of classes at Lewis & Clark to come up with creative ways to construct, manipulate, and use these models.
Did you know what you wanted to major in when you came to L&C? Did that change once you got here? When did you declare your major?
Although I knew that I wanted to major in STEM, I had no idea as a first year that I would specifically major in mathematics and chemistry. This led me to take a wide variety of STEM courses my first two years at L&C so that I could explore different fields. Due to the fact that I came into college with 19 credits from AP courses, I had to declare my major in the fall of my sophomore year before I had decided which subjects to major in. This led to me randomly choosing mathematics. By the spring of my sophomore year, I finally settled on majoring in both chemistry and mathematics, so I declared my second major later that semester. Just because I declared my major, however, did not mean that I did not feel uncertain about my choice in the years following this decision. There were many times during my junior and senior year when I was tempted to change majors because I felt drawn to physics and computer science. Despite this uncertainty, I feel content with the choice I made my sophomore year, and I will pursue my other interests in STEM by working different kinds of jobs after graduation if I feel compelled to do so.
How do you describe the liberal arts?
I think of studying the liberal arts as a way to explore connections between different subjects and gain an understanding of how to approach problems from multiple directions using several different perspectives. It also helps students develop the ability to think creatively and critically about how to work with a variety of people and their ideas to solve complex interdisciplinary issues. It is important to note that the liberal arts are not used specifically to teach students how to perform certain tasks and are instead used to teach students how to learn, think, and therefore more easily pick up skills related to a specific profession later on in life.
Why did you want to attend a liberal arts college? Did you consider other kinds of schools?
I wanted to attend a liberal arts college because I enjoy being able to take a variety of courses and think about concepts that bring multiple subjects together. I worked on several projects in high school that required me to take concepts from the sciences, arts, and humanities to answer challenging questions that I really enjoyed, and I was interested in being able to further explore creatively connecting different subjects together. I did not spend a lot of time looking at non-liberal arts schools—I absolutely wanted variety in my classes and the ability to explore a wide range of topics.
What do you hope to do with your degree?
I will use my degree to further explore the relationship between mathematics and chemistry by working as an analytical and theoretical chemist, both working with chemicals in a laboratory setting and modeling their behavior. Although I have not figured out exactly what I am going to do following graduation, it will likely involve a lot of research, which I greatly enjoy because it allows me to use my interdisciplinary thinking skills to creatively set up experiments and work around problems. I also like working with Excel and other data processing applications a lot, so I may end up working jobs that involve a lot of data management.
